


Reclamation

by Anonymous



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Graphic Description, Hypersensitivity, Nick has upgraded to a Gen 3 body, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Overstimulation, Slavery, Torture, not willingly, yeah.... there's eye mutilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 20:55:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20453414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Days after Nick Valentine's Gen 2 body finally gives out and he is forcibly upgraded to Gen 3, the Institute finally catches up with him.





	Reclamation

The synth is trivially easy to take down.

He--it refers to itself as he, and in this new battered body perhaps it is--is unsteady, distracted by its stolen form, and unused to the soft tender parts of a third generation body. The courser does not need to use his gun or the relay grenades in his pocket. He drives an elbow deep into the synth's belly, and its legs fold. If it were human the blow would have ruptured something inside, killing it within hours. Synths, however, are made of tougher stuff. This one grits its teeth and stifles a groan.

"Please," the synth gasps, hunched over its folded arms. "I'm not who you think I am.

"I know exactly who you are. You're a stolen synth in the body of a runaway synth.

The synth does not respond. It tries to stand, and the courser grabs it by the upper arm, his thumb pressing roughly into the tender flesh beneath the synth's arm. It chokes back another cry. It is unused to this body, the way its unarmored flesh feels every slight touch. In time it will learn to accept the pain, but for now it is reeling with sensations.

Shoving the synth back down into a kneeling position, the courser wraps a rope around its wrists.

"You don't have to do this." The synth can barely hold itself upright. The courser would laugh, if he were someone else. This is the synth that's been at large for sixty years? "You don't have to be this."

"Quiet." The courser tightens the knot until the synth's hands are pale with restricted blood flow. Using a deactivation code would be preferable, but the synth's consciousness predates those. Instead the courser has the vial in his coat pocket, which he now draws out along with a syringe.

For a moment the synth sways in place, but its eyes fall onto the syringe and it throws itself to one side, scrabbling to get away.

"What the hell is that?" it demands. "Stay away from me!"

The courser fills the syringe from the vial. "It would not be in your best interest to struggle."

The synth's eyes rove over the room, searching for an escape, an out, a distraction. The courser steps closer, and when the synth lashes out he easily blocks the blows before taking hold of the synth's bound hands and pinning him back against the wall. He drives his knee into the synth's belly and again the synth is gasping for air. While he is immobilized the courser plunges the syringe into the subclavian vein and injects every drop of pancuronium bromide into its blood stream. The synth bucks under him; it has little more to lose. But the courser keeps it pinned even as it struggles. Eventually its thrashing grows weak.

In the Institute pancuronium is used primarily in end of life care. When a person no longer desires to live they are given a sedative to induce unconsciousness, then a dose of pancuronium to induce paralysis, and then a final overdose.

All the synth has received is the paralysis. It will have nothing more.

The generation three body goes limp under the injection and slumps forward. The synth's head rests on the courser's shoulder. It makes strangled snoring noises--apnea. The courser reaches around the synth, wrapping both arms as if in a hug, lifts the synth to a standing position, and teleports out.

They land back in the Institute, in a cell not far from Synth Retention. A scientist waits nearby, ready to assist the courser as he lifts the synth's body onto the exam table.

"Any trouble?" she asks.

Knowing the synth is still conscious, still trapped inside its paralyzed body, the courser directs his reply toward it. "None."

The scientist slices easily through the ropes that bind the synth, and she and the courser each strap an arm to the table. They do the same with the legs, and the scientist cuts back the synth's shirt and begins adhering ECG patchs to its chest.

"Father should be notified." The courser notes an odd angularity to the synth's left wrist that he hadn't noticed when tying him. At a glance it appears broken; perhaps the synth had a higher tolerance for pain than he'd expected.

In the end it matters little. The synth was subdued and returned to the Institute. That is all he was sent to do.

"He has been. He will be here as soon as he has finished business with the board."

The synth makes a sound not unlike a sob.

"How much did you give him?"

"Enough."

An irritated expression settles on the scientist's face. "I don't want to intubate him."

"That won't be necessary."

"I'm bringing him back."

"It will be fully recovered in two hours."

"I'm going to give him a cholinesterase inhibitor anyway."

The courser says nothing. The synth is her problem now; whatever damage he can do while in control of his body is on her hands.

The scientist gives the synth another injection, this one in the soft flesh of his inner forearm. Another soft spot the synth is unused to having handled. Its heart rate spikes as the needle pierces its skin. His information says that the synth has been seen to use stimpacks even as a gen two, but he can only imagine how the needle must feel on the thousands of nerves of a synth that has never had them before.

"He's not been long in this body," the scientist observes.

A few days, perhaps. The courser says nothing.

"Kind of a shame. Some of us were hoping to see how that original gen two frame held up." The snoring rattle of the apnea comes again from the synth's throat. She frowns and tilts his chin up with two fingers. "How long...?"

"Less than five minutes."

That answer seems to calm her. The synth's eyes have opened just a bit. "I still think a sedative would have been more effective, but Father is..."

"...the final say on these matters."

The scientist and the courser both turn as the door slides open and Father steps in. The elderly man walks a circuit around the table, examining every inch of the synth's body, and it follows him with its eyes.

"Not the form I would have chosen for him." Father leans down close to its face. "What's your designation, synth?"

"Oh, he's not..." the scientist starts to say, but the synth looks Father head-on.

"The name's Nick Valentine," it growls. Its voice is soft and slurred--it hasn't fully recovered yet from the pancuronium.

Father chuckles. "Close enough. And the body, who did he displace?"

"X6-21." The synth's stolen body is slightly older than the courser, originally escaped during what was meant to be a replacement mission to Covenant.

"I see. And clearly there was never a chance of recovering him." Father straightens up. He winces, a hand at his back, but the courser and scientist pretend not to see. "Let's get this over with."

The scientist nods and returns to cutting back the synth's clothes. Its heart is racing now. The cholinesterase inhibitor is starting to take effect.

"She wasn't with him?" Father asks, and the courser shakes his head. "Ah. Perhaps that's for the best. I should thank you," he continues, directing this comment to the synth. "Without your help it's likely the mercenary would have killed my mother."

The synth stares at him. Its body is beginning to tremble, and it flinches slightly when the scientist tears back its shirt to reveal its belly. "You... Shaun?"

Father tips his head to one side, an affirmation. He nods to the scientist.

She runs her hand along the synth's belly, and it is so weighed down by the paralytic that its muscles don't twitch in response. She lowers her scalpel to its skin.

"Don't," the synth whispers. "Please, you don't have to..."

She cuts into the soft bruised flesh of its abdomen, and it gives an agonized, muffled cry. Its breathing is strained as she opens him to full view.

"Just remember that it didn't need to be this way," Father says calmly. "This is your payment for use of X6-21's body."

The scientist holds the wound open and the courser comes forward to plunge his hand deep into the synth's guts. They are amazingly realistic; blood gushes from the wound but the internal organs are unharmed.

"I didn't ask them for this," the synth says. "Please."

But it is too late for that. The courser's hand has found what he's looking for, a rounded knob of plastic deep down inside the synth's ribs.

"Please," it begs. "Please, please, please..."

The courser rips the component from inside it, and a strangled wail escapes the synth's throat.

"Thank you." Father accepts the component and turns it over in the palm of his hand. "Shame about X6-21. Have Justin look it over and see what can be reclaimed."

The synth lies dormant. His... its body is still too sensitive for it to maintain consciousness.

"Clean him up," Father says to the courser. "I will be back to speak with him when he is conscious."

The two humans leave them, and the courser turns his attention back to the synth. With the supplies left for him he stitches the synth's belly back together. Twenty-nine stitches are required to close the wound. On a human such a wound would leave them bedridden, but the synth will recover quickly.

In fact, the synth now stirs beneath the courser's hand, flinchs as the blood is wiped from its belly. Its mouth opens, tears form in its eyes, and in a weak, cracked voice it says, "Ow."

That is all it has to say for itself.

The courser probes the wound with two stiffened fingers, ensuring it is closed. The synth writhes beneath him and cries, "Christ. Don't touch me."

This surprises the courser. That is its request? Not, "Let me go," not "Don't hurt me," but "Don't touch me." He lays a gloved hand flat on the lowest part of the synth's belly. He doesn't press down. He does nothing that should cause pain.

The synth whimpers. "Don't."

There is more to it than pain. Somehow this synth actually thinks it is entitled to bodily autonomy. It really has been gone for some time. The courser does not let up on it. His fingers probe deeper into the wound.

"Shit." The synth tries to pull away but its body is still too heavy. Its heart is racing, its breaths coming in uneven gasps. The courser lets up on the wound but moves his hand lower. "G... get your hands off me."

"This is a lesson you will want to learn sooner rather than later. This body does not belong to you."

"Didn't ask for it. Didn't want it."

The courser is aware, but he finds it difficult to believe that a fully aware personality would be content in a second generation body. "It isn't only the body. You belong to the Institute."

The synth swallows hard. He is shaking. "What do you people want with me?"

"Does it matter?" the courser asks. "You are Institute property. You were stolen. Now you have been returned."

"I wasn't stolen. The Institute threw me away like I was garbage. If they didn't want me then I don't know why they want me now."

This is a story that the synth has repeated so many times he appears to actually believe it. The courser is vaguely amused. Rather than make this apparent he changes the subject. "You should know that you are going to be reclaimed. It is not a procedure anyone would envy." Its belly is still tense beneath the courser's hand. He steps away from it.

The synth chuckles wearily, relief plainly flooding through him as the courser's hand leaves his flesh, and closes his eyes . "You mean it gets worse than this?"

"Significantly."

To this the synth makes no reply. It is--he is?--conserving its energy. A smart move, but there was never any doubt that the synth could strategize.

The courser feels the slightest bit of sympathy for the synth. He has spent a wastelander's lifetime fooling himself into believing he is more than just a machine, and now he can't comprehend living any differently. The transition will be rough.

"What are we looking at?" the synth asks quietly.

"What do you mean?"

"This... what did you call it? Reclaiming? How does it happen, how does it work."

The courser calls to mind images of the reclamation chamber, of synths all but broken physically being pressed down into the spikes of the chair, their memories drained from their bodies until they were nothing more than shells. "Exactly as it sounds. Your memories will be recorded for review. There will be a debriefing. Depending on the circumstances, the body may be repurposed for other field work."

"And what about me?"

"What about you?" the courser asks. "The memories will be recorded. The body will be recycled. What else is there?"

At this the synth's eyes open just a fraction, and the look he gives the courser, pained but pitying, sends a spike of anger through the courser.

"You are not human," he says. "Don't let a stolen body fool you into thinking you're more than you are."

The synth just looks at him with his sad eyes. A flash of rage grips the courser, and he stabs his fingers into the synth's belly just below the abdominal wound. A strangled gasp escapes the synth's throat. His eyes hold panic. As quickly as it came the rage vanishes.

"I'm trying to help you," the courser says. He does not let up on the synth. "You have nothing to gain from antagonizing me."

"I know." The synth's voice comes soft and strained, his body tense beneath the courser's fingers. His quick shallow breaths are all that can be heard in the room. When the courser stabs deeper his body writhes. "Oh... oh, god..."

"Do you want my advice, or not?"

For a moment the synth lies there, stiff and trembling. He gives a small, desperate nod.

The courser steps back, and the synth's body visibly slackens. He is tired, too tired to hold on. "I can't tell you precisely what will happen. It all depends on how Father sees fit to work with you. The most you can do is comply with everything asked. It will be easiest on everyone involved, including yourself." Images pass through his mind: broken bodies, eyes raised skyward, pleading faces. "What they will do to you will feel like more than your body can handle. It is not."

Fear burns through the synth's face. He is not used to a body that betrays his emotions so easily, and every facet of his dread is there in his eyes.

"You are not human. They will not treat you like a human. Answer their questions. Don't fight back. Accept that this will break you."

There are tears on the synth's face. Fear, pain, over-stimulation--everything is coming out at once.

"You had to have known this was coming," the courser says, except, of course, the synth didn't. He's tried very hard to forget, it seems. "Breath through it as long as you can. It's worse when you stop being able to control your breathing." At this he pauses, reflecting on the battered gen two frame the synth used to inhabit. "Can you do that?"

The synth does not reply. Already his breathing is desperate, coming in short, panicked bursts, and it's clear that he has little control over his stolen body.

For a moment the courser rests his hand against his pocket and thinks of the pancuronium inside. A paralytic would make this simpler. Just enough to force the automatic breathing to kick in. Perhaps it would aggravate the apnea, and it would slur his speech the way it had before, but if the synth is incapable of fighting back there won't be as much of an ordeal.

But it is already too late. Behind the courser the door opens, and Father asks, "Well?"

The courser nods and steps back into a corner.

"I'm quite pleased to finally meet you," Father says, stepping up beside the synth. A different scientist, following closely behind, begins setting up his supplies in the corner. "I have many questions to ask."

The synth stares straight up. His breathing is still strained.

"Tell me about my mother."

A muscle in the synth's jaw twitches, but there is no reply.

"She wouldn't have made it this far without your help. You know her better than anyone." Father tilts his head to one side. "What would you say are her feelings on the Institute?"

The synth is breathing hard. He says, softly, grimly, "They stole you from her. What'd you think her feelings are?"

For a moment something flashes on Father's face--an instant of sadness and pain--before it is replaced by his usual stoic expression. "What's done is done. All we can do is make the most of the time we have left. I had hoped she would understand that. Ah, well." He glances down at the wound in the synth's abdomen, tracing the stitches with his eyes. "Our intention was to reclaim runaway synths. That much we are accomplishing." He turns to the scientist. "Dr. Woodmere, why don't you open him up. If he has nothing to say we can always do this the old fashioned way."

The synth swallows. He is plainly trying hard not to show his fear, but in this unfamiliar body it is always there, in the racing pulse, the sweating hands, the shiver that takes hold and doesn't let go.

"Yes, Father." The scientist turns away from his supplies. In his hand is a scalpel.

"Now," Father says, his voice gentle. He tips his head to look into the synth's eyes. "Are you sure there's nothing you want to tell me?"

The synth looks through him as if he isn't there.

"Alright." Father gives the scientist a nod, and the man puts the scalpel to the tender flesh of the synth's inner arm.

His eyes grow wide at the touch. He is trying to hold himself together. And when the scalpel parts the skin as easily as paper, when the blood blossoms up like roses, when the tears flood his eyes--he strangles the cry that rises in the back of his throat.

He was warned, the courser thinks. He had asked the courser's advice and been given it quite freely. Still he chose to believe that the memories inside his head belonged to him and not the Institute.

"Hold him down," Father says. The courser moves to stand above the synth's head. He easily pins the synth's shoulders to the table. The synth looks up at him, and his eyes are filled with tears, desperate for sympathy, panicked and pitying at once. The courser doesn't speak. Neither does the synth.

Though he bites his lips until they bleeds in an attempt to stay quiet, the synth rises up against the straps, struggling even as the leather bites into his arms. His eyes are fixed on the courser's. He doesn't want to believe he is in this alone.

The truth is that there is no reason for synths to be restrained like this when the pancuronium is readily available. In fact, there is no reason for synths to be awake at all during this procedure. It would be much simpler to sedate the synths and then extract the memory chips without so much trauma to the body. This is how it is done when a synth is recalled from the field, but Father never allows sedation on a recaptured synth. Perhaps he does not wish to be accused of being humane.

Perhaps he just enjoys watching them break.

The synth writhes as the scientist reaches into his arm with a pair of sharp-nosed tweezers. He looks desperately up at the courser, muscles knotted against the pain and the remaining aura of the paralytic. The courser looks back, expressionless. This is the easiest chip to remove, the one on his arm. If the synth is losing control already then he is unlikely to survive further reclamation.

At last the scientist wrenches the tweezers hard, twisting out a chip no bigger than a thumbnail. The synth raises his head, struggles not to cry out, and falls back against the table.  
The scientist drops the chip into a shallow dish of disinfectant and moves on to the second of three chips.

The courser looks to Father as the scientist comes closer, and when he receives a nod he steps back from the synth's head, effectively trading places. The synth is still looking at him.

Breathe through it, the courser thinks, but it seems this is beyond the synth's control now. To his credit he is very still on the table. He doesn't move a muscle as the scientist gently palpates the tell-tale bulge on the side of his throat, even though the courser is sure that the touch must feel strange. In its--his--old form the synthetic skin was largely deadened in the places where it hadn't worn away. The touch must feel like either a tickle or a distracting pressure.

"I would advise you to hold still," the scientist says, and lightly cuts back a flap of skin on the synth's neck.

The noise that comes from the synth chest is like the apnea but so much stronger. He is doing his best to be still, but the sensitivity is still so high that it pulls his eyes back into his head.  
He doesn't lose consciousness, though. When the courser presses down on the incision on his arm his eyelids flutter and his eyes flicker over to the courser. With what seems to be a massive effort he draws in a breath, holds it for a beat, then releases it.

The scientist peels back the skin and slices into muscle and flesh. The synth stiffens, fingers scratching at the table beneath him. He is struggling to breathe. He is trying to hold onto what little control he has. The scientist reaches in with those perilously sharp tweezers and takes hold of the chip that presses up against the synth's trachea.The synth's eyes, still on the courser's, are flooded with fear.

And the scientist pulls it free.

The synth cries out--unwillingly, no doubt, but the scream tears itself from him. The incision to retrieve the chip in a synth's throat is notoriously difficult to make because of the angle it must be made at and because the chip in this location has a tendency to drift. It's also slightly too small. The chip catches the edges of the wound and tears it wider. As the scientist deposits this chip as well into the disinfectant the synth again loses control of his breath. It comes in quick, uneven, hyperventilated bursts. His eyes again roll back in his head. His too-sensitive body is threatening to shut down. There he lies, the jerky rise and fall of his chest his only movement.

But even as his head lolls to one side Father comes closer. He takes the synth's chin in his hand and turns his face toward him.

"How are you enjoying X6-21's body?" he asks. When the synth doesn't respond he digs his thumb deep into the flesh beneath his jaw. Surprisingly, it does appear to pull the synth back from the edge. "It has its own limitations, but given what you started out with it must seem quite an improvement."

There is blood leaking from the synth's mouth. His eyes rove around the room, unable or unwilling to settle on anything for long. Hidden by his own hand pressing down on the synth's arm, the courser strokes his thumb up and down the sensitive flesh. Up, a pause, down, a pause. A breath in, a single moment, and a breath out.

For a moment it doesn't appear that the synth notices. His consciousness flags... and then once more he pulls himself back from the edge. His nostrils flare as he struggles with the breaths. In. A moment. Out. He is barely keeping time with the courser's strokes, but he is trying.

Father watches him do this silently. He does not appear angry, merely curious. He lets go of the synth's chin and watches as he pours all his effort into controlling his breathing.

"Go ahead," he says to the scientist.

The courser of course knows what is coming, but when the scientist steps aside to give him room to stand the synth almost seems to relax. The courser presses a hand against either side of his head to hold him in place. The synth's eyes actually drift shut. He doesn't realize what is coming.

The courser swallows.

The scientist leans in. He gingerly presses against the synth's right eye, working the eyelid open. When he does the synth's eyes are clouded, his vision blurred, so that he doesn't immediately see the scalpel in the scientist's hand. Only as it draws closer does he realize.

"No," he whispered, his voice breaking in his throat. He tries to struggle but doesn't have the strength to break free. "God, don't."

The scientist looks to Father. The response is nothing but a silent gaze.

There is no reason for the synth to be conscious for this.

"You don't have to do this," the synth says. His eyes meet the courser's then flicker toward Father. "She wanted to find you so bad, Shaun. I can ask her to meet you. Just to talk." When the scientist moves his scalpel nearer he closes his eyes tightly.

Breathe through this, the courser thinks. But he's never met a synth that hasn't fallen apart by the final chip.

The scientist excises the synth's eyelid easily, and the scream that comes is almost unbearable.  
"Please." That's the only word that comes through. The synth isn't aware of what he's doing, can't see through the blood, and when the scalpel slices into his eyeball the resultant thrashing nearly tears the synth from the courser's grasp.

"Keep him still, damn it," the scientist snaps, pulling away the scalpel so that he isn't inadvertently sliced himself.

Breathe, the courser thinks, but the synth is beyond breathing at this point. He is nothing but a bundle of over-stimulated nerves in an agony he could never have imagined. It takes all of the courser's weight brought to bear on his forehead and jaw to hold him down. He's past words, reduced to sobbing.

When the courser at last has the synth restrained, the scientist finishes his job. He cuts out the synth's right eye and pulls from behind it the last chip, and after that the synth doesn't have the strength to struggle. When the courser wipes away the blood from his remaining eye it is glassy. His automatic breathing has taken over. His stolen body retches violently, but when the courser lets go of him all that comes from his mouth is blood and watery bile.

"Anything you'd like to say to me?" Father asks softly.

For a moment the synth is consumed by the needs of this agonized body. On his own, though, he manages to turn his head, and he looks up at Father. His lips move, but if he speaks it's too soft to hear between desperate heavy breaths.

"You'll have to speak up," Father says. A soft smirk crosses his face.

The synth closes his eyes, breathes in and out, and then he looks again at Father. In his pained voice, hoarse from screaming, he whispers, "She's never gonna love you, jackass."

Father doesn't even dignify that with a response. "Bring him to the reclamation chamber," he says to the courser, and he and the scientist leave.

When they step out the synth goes limp. The courser wants to ask him if it was worth it but doesn't. There is nothing holding the synth together anymore. He doesn't respond as the courser stitches the wound in his arm and his neck. He doesn't rouse himself even as the courser stuffs a wad of absorbent fabric into the empty socket where his eye used to be--he groans, softly, almost imperceptibly, but doesn't wake.

The courser's anger is long gone.

Father is waiting with a technician from the Synth Retention Bureau in the reclamation chamber when he brings the synth in. The reclamation chair is prepped and ready.

Working alone the courser strips the bloody remains of the clothes from the synth's body and loosens the restraints. He lifts the synth in his arms and carries him to the chair. The synth fits easily on it--hips against the lower bar, vertebrae aligning perfectly against each needle-sharp point, neck cradled in the brace.

"Do it," Father says softly, and the technician flips a switch.

The needles extend, stabbing deep into the synth's spine. For a moment he appears to be regaining consciousness--his hands, instead of hanging limply to either side, rise just a bit, reaching out for something, someone--but in the end he doesn't wake.

The entire process takes less than five minutes. When it is done the needles withdraw and the empty shell of the stolen body is carried away by a pair of nameless, faceless synths.

"Get that data compiling." Father all but spits the words, hand pressed to his lower back. He walks out before the technician can do anything.

"Good work as always," the technician says to the courser. The courser does not respond.

More superstitious members of the Institute call it the synth graveyard, but that implies an orderliness that doesn't exist in the scrap heap. In the lowest level of the Institute, not far from Synth Retention, broken synths are tossed in haphazard piles--gen one synths here, gen two there, and gen three nearest the door. Once a week the most junior workers from Robotics come in and set to work dismantling the frames for later reuse. The process should be automated by now, the frames should be broken down within hours of arrival, but that somehow there are always higher priorities.

The courser is alone when he enters the scrap yard. He passes no more than two feet from the battered body he brought back but doesn't even spare it a glance. In his hand is a single haptic drive.

He walks to the discarded gen 2 frames and considers each before pulling one free. It is in rougher shape that some of the others. The synthetic skin of his face is almost entirely missing on the left side, the hands and feet are worn through to the metal bones, and the left hand looks almost rusty, difficult to open and close.

The courser holds the frame and teleports out.

He lands in the Red Rocket station in Nahant, in the garage near the diagnostic bench. He lays the frame on the floor, propped up against the wall, and opens up the abdominal panel. He slides the haptic drive into the port deep behind the metal ribs.

It is still daylight, but only barely. The courser keeps an eye on Libertalia for any stray raiders until finally the rush of internal fans causes him to look back.

The synth lies against the wall, eyes glowing softly in the encroaching darkness. He is still in pain, still unbelievably sore, but in this body it isn't so intense.

"It will take time for the technicians to compile your memories into a format they can view," the courser says. "There's a radio on the cabinet there. Contact your people and do it quickly. If Father finds out about this he will have coursers on you in a matter of minutes. I would advise you hole up here until it is dark, if possible."

The synth looks down at his generation two hands, flexes the stiff, rusty fingers, and then looks back at the courser. The courser locks eyes with him and sets a laser pistol, fusion cell clip full, on the diagnostic bench.

"Thank you," the synth mumbles. The voice that speaks is not entirely his own, but it could be physical damage to the frame or simply his own lack of integration into it.

"Don't thank me," the courser says. He readies himself for the transport back, but the synth reaches out a trembling hand that snags his sleeve.

"What's your name?" the synth asks softly.

Looking into the synth's eyes is surprisingly difficult. The courser looks away. "X6-88."

"Is that the name you gave yourself, or the name they gave you?"

In surprise his eyes meet the synth's again, and though they are only yellow lighted circles there is pity in them, just as there was in the generation three body.

"There is no difference," he says.

The synth breaks eye contact, trying to move up onto his knees. He isn't quite ready to support himself. Before he can fall the courser grabs him by the shoulder, and the synth holds to his coat with both hands, face pressed to the courser's belly.

"You deserve better." His voice is like the faintest breeze from the ocean. "Just... just know that you deserve better."

The courser pulls him away to lean back against the wall and moves the radio down where he can reach. The synth catches his hand.

"They don't own you," he whispers. "You don't belong to anybody but yourself."

The courser steps away from him. He walks toward the open garage door, and then he does something he's never done before, something he never thought he could do.

Just before he relays into the Institute, the courser looks back.


End file.
